


and see before the night descends

by plumedy



Category: Les Misérables (Movie 1998), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Frenemies, Gen, Post-Canon, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:39:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6787933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/pseuds/plumedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valjean saves Javert from drowning. Javert is less than pleased about this development.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and see before the night descends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MrsHorowietzky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsHorowietzky/gifts).



> the title is from a completely unrelated poem which happens to be... strangely fitting.
> 
> _Saint Martin sang his benison, his pity flowereth;  
>  He met a man lost in the snows.  
> The wretched man was freezing, so the Saint gave him his clothes;  
> Of course, the two men froze to death.  
> The pearly gates no doubt he won,  
> And see before the night descends:  
> So kind beyond comparison!  
> Warm-hearted, but beneath the ice he ends.  
> Oh pity’s great— Thank God we’ve none._

Icy filth swallowed Javert whole, and he involuntarily opened his eyes. All was brown and green before him. The water swirled forcefully in his mouth; it tasted like rot. It seemed to him in that moment that the great river was hardly more than an enormous ditch full of sludge.

“What a miserable end,” he thought with some distaste.

Closing his eyes again, he expelled as much air from his lungs as he could and was rewarded with a burning sensation in his chest. He felt himself struggle instinctively, his limbs thrashing; but he’d made sure his body would not defy him. Soon his wrists under the handcuffs were so raw and numb he no longer felt them in the all-consuming fire of the freezing Seine. The current was dragging him under.

It was a duty fulfilled, a battle fought to the end. Even in the throes of final agony a small piece of Javert knew that. In all his years of service he’d never wanted to be rewarded; but this, he felt, was worth a reward. It merited, perhaps, the newly-created honour medal for courage and devotion, and he seemed even to feel this medal upon his breast, improbably large and heavy.

It dragged him down, down, into the silent blackness below his feet. In that blackness he saw, he thought, many more such medals; or were they stars?

These clear lights appeared to grow, yet with every second they were farther away; and he knew that he would not reach them.

A great and bitter calm came upon him. He was drifting.

 

Free. At last, he was freed from this maddening chase; from having to see the gleam of those cunning wolfish eyes in every human shadow.

No more would he have to hide; no more would he dread the sound of his own name. And Jean Valjean’s heart soared and sung at this thought, and for a moment the whole world seemed to him like a great impossible promise.

How pure was the colour of the darkening clouds! How sharp the smell of smoke and water!

Walking a few steps away, he lifted his hands to his face in mute agitated wonder.

But something struck him in that moment. After all those years of freedom, his wrists grew bony and sinewy; they became unused to handcuffs. And now the markings on them stood out clearly - circles of inflamed and bruised skin. He remembered suddenly where those bruises came from and why he was no longer restrained; a terrible realization jolted through him, and at once he turned and ran towards the edge of the riverbank.

Jean Valjean had a great capacity for cold-bloodedness. Even as prison awakes the basest instincts in the inmates, making them into wild beasts, it gives them a good deal of remarkable composure and speediness of thought. Later, he would ask himself over and over again if what he did was right; but there was undoubtedly a moment of decision as he stood over that dark, preternaturally calm water that no longer bore any sign of the body it had swallowed.

He threw his jacket off and plunged into the river.

Down below, it was hard to see. Hard to feel, too, for the current was cold and strong, and struggling with it was almost like grappling with another human being. He swung his arms forcefully, momentarily clearing away the mist of scum in front of him.

A few feet away, dark in the thickness of the green water, floated the very thing he sought.

Javert’s cuffed hands were stretched forward as if in supplication; but his eyes were shut, and there was an expression of calm severity upon his features. Feeling the air in his lungs exhaust itself, Jean Valjean gripped the chain of the handcuffs and hauled Javert up, towards the clarity of the sky above.

He was no longer young. The current had dragged them both a considerable distance downstream and towards the middle of the river; Valjean’s muscles ached, and he felt tired and disoriented. Javert hung on him like a dead weight. Valjean held his body close, and Javert’s head rested on his shoulder, lolling lifelessly with every stroke.

“Live, damn you,” breathed Valjean. But Javert, assertive as ever of his own decisions, seemed intent on doing the opposite. He was not breathing.

After what seemed like an eternity Valjean felt the rough stone of the riverbank with his free hand. Momentarily loosening his grip on his burden, he reached up and grabbed the edge.

It seemed an impossible effort for a moment. The bank was too high; Javert’s body - too heavy; and he, Valjean - entirely too weak.

But, for the better or for the worse, he realized in that moment that he would rather drown himself than let go of Javert. With a great grunt he pulled them both upwards, clambered over the edge, and dragged Javert onto the pavement.

It was darkening. The evening was quiet; the spring wind whispered softly in the branches of the trees above them. For a few long moments Valjean lay, relishing the cool of hard stone against his cheek, his breath coming in hoarse gasps.

Something cold brushed against his wrist, and he heard a sudden jarring _clink_.

He turned his head. Javert was struggling to open his eyes, and his hands clenched and unclenched convulsively, as though trying to shake the handcuffs off. Valjean raised himself slowly and sat on his heels beside Javert.

The man was a frightful sight - pale, almost as though he had really drowned; his black curls strewn across his forehead like seaweeds, water dripping from his mouth and down the high collar of his coat. He coughed labouredly, bringing more water up, and would’ve started to choke again if Valjean hadn’t carefully turned his head to one side.

“Jean Valjean,” were Javert’s first words, husky and slurred. He was looking at Valjean now, alertness flickering in his eyes.

Despite himself Valjean felt animal dread pooling at the bottom of his stomach at the sight of this body spasmodically regaining consciousness, at the sound of this voice saying his name - his true name. For a moment he thought how wrong, how unnatural this was; that what was coming to life in front of him should’ve died and been buried.

Then a great surge of guilt came over him.

“It is I,” he said, as gently as he could.

“You have saved me.” Javert was breathing heavily, his gaze intent on Valjean’s face. Valjean was silent. “Curse you.”

Valjean recalled himself muttering _live, damn you_ not half an hour ago, and he could’ve almost laughed.

“I could’ve drowned doing this.”

“I wish you had.”

 

For Javert, this was a rare episode of clarity in the great confusion of the hour following his plunge into the Seine. He didn’t know where he was, or who was with him; his vision betrayed him suddenly and showed him mere flashes of his surroundings in-between periods of profound blackness.

At times he knew not whether he was dead or alive. He felt himself being carried in someone’s arms; then there was the clatter of badly oiled wheels and a horse’s hooves striking against the pavement. He realized that he was in a carriage. Could it be a funeral cart? But if he had died on duty, why was there no orchestra? Would they not have buried him to the sounds of _Le Retour_?

Javert worried that he had died a dishonourable death. The thought caused him great anguish, and he tossed about as though in fever.

His wrists, he soon realized, ached and felt stiff; and he could hear a sharp jarring clatter every time he moved his hands. He was handcuffed! Cold sweat broke out on his face and his neck. God! Was he a criminal?

But what had he done? He could not recall. What wrong could he, Inspector Javert, have possibly committed?

“Where’s the key?” he heard someone’s voice. It was brisk, but with an undertone of great tiredness. Javert had heard this voice before.

And suddenly he remembered.

“Why did you pull me out?” he asked suspiciously.

“Where’s the key to the handcuffs? I need to free you.”

Javert blinked slowly, trying to make out his surroundings. It was, undoubtedly, a carriage, and one moving at a great speed. He could see now that his affliction was not entirely responsible for the darkness around him; it was night or late evening, and only an occasional flicker of a lighted window provided some illumination.

“The key is in my inner pocket,” he muttered. “Where are you taking me?”

“To the Hôtel-Dieu.”

Valjean’s hands unceremoniously undid the buttons on his coat and extracted the key. Javert heard it jingle against the metal of the handcuffs, and blood rushed into his fingers. The sensation was delightful - like rain soaking dried earth.

After a moment of perceptible hesitation, the hands returned to button his coat back up.

“There,” Valjean said gruffly.

All those manipulations with his clothes made Javert remember that he was soaking wet. The slight measured sound he had been hearing for a while now must’ve been water dripping from his own hair onto the leather seat.

He was cold, too, so terribly cold it seemed he would never be warm again. His teeth were starting to chatter.

“Why did you save me?”

There was a slight groan.

“I don’t think you want to know.”

“You mistake my meaning,” Javert countered irritably. “What you think is of no consequence. I’m a police inspector and I demand to know your motives.”

“I can see that you’re rapidly regaining your strength,” came the dry remark.

This greatly frustrating conversation had not, however, the chance to progress much further, for the driver shouted “whoa!” and the carriage abruptly came to a stop. Javert found himself being hauled up in what was a no-nonsense but, surprisingly enough, fairly gentle manner.

“It is not up to us to decide whether we live or die,” Valjean told him quietly. Javert could’ve laughed at the irony of this statement.

“Precisely,” was all he said.

Though his limbs were still weak and he could make nary a step without support, he could see better now. In front of him were, indeed, the familiar gates of the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris with its beige stone pillars.

The next moment he knew, he was being presented to an extraordinarily dishevelled thin-nosed medical attendant, whose young face in the light of the lantern bore a mildly disgusted expression.

“This is Inspector Javert of the Paris police,” Valjean said with great and sudden firmness. “He has just suffered an unfortunate accident in the line of duty. You will take care of him until such time as he is considered fully recovered.”

The attendant did not look particularly impressed.

“How do I know he really is a police inspector?” he asked, scratching his neck. “You’re just a pair of beggars as far as I can see.”

Javert decided to take the matter into his own hands and was able, after some fumbling in his pockets, to produce his documents. The attendant studied them sceptically, trying to decipher the ink stains smudged by river water.

“The Inspector is currently leading an important investigation,” pressed Valjean. “I can promise you the Prefect won’t be pleased you have left one of his best officers to die.”

“Very well,” said the attendant slowly, though Javert could not tell whether his change of heart was caused by the threat or by the franc coin Javert could see Valjean press into the attendant’s hand. “I suppose we shall be able to verify his identity in the morning. He can stay until then.”

They proceeded to guide Javert to a cot in one of the wards. Then he was carefully lowered onto the dubious grey sheets that smelt sharply of carbolic.

“Well, my duty here is done,” said Valjean after a pause, and sighed a little. “I anticipate you shall not like the sound of this, but, whatever my opinion of your past conduct, I believe that you deserve mercy.”

 

Indeed, Javert did not like the sound of it at all. As the night wore on and his body regained its faculties in periods of fitful sleep, his mental strength was also restored to him, and Valjean’s words echoed in his ears louder than ever.

He ground his teeth at the recollections coming to the surface of his mind, and tossed in helpless fury. At times he thought he’d have preferred to have never recovered from drowning and been left a slobbering idiot rather than remember any of what had happened to him afterwards.

The doctor who came to examine him in the morning found him in sound mind, but much worse in body. Upon putting his large red ear to Javert’s chest, he clicked his tongue, concern clouding his face, and gave the nurses a few short instructions.

One of Javert’s officers - Lieutenant Mercier - was summoned and confirmed his identity. Under different circumstances he would’ve appreciated the lack of amazement Mercier exhibited at the information that his superior had been fished out of the Seine. The force needed men like this.

Javert found himself promoted to a slightly bigger bed and being given considerably less dismissive treatment.

But it was all the same to him now. He was inconsolable.

With remarkable rapidity he developed a fever. The short period of relative clarity was over; and once again Javert found the world transformed around him, every sound and every image magnified and distorted.

He looked at the ceiling, and the plaster ornaments seemed to him alive and crawling. The reek of carbolic and human waste in the air carried him away; and he saw, in his mind’s eye, a very different place of confinement.

He had not revisited these memories in many years. They grew vague and frayed at the edges. But some episodes still stood out with unbearable brightness, and he found himself wanting to shield his eyes from things he had learned to be blind to decades ago.

Javert supposed that Valjean might say of him that he didn’t have a heart, that he didn’t know mercy and kindness. Let this pathetic man say what he might; Javert knew what mercy and kindness were all too well.

Humiliation, pain, and filth - so much filth. That was all those words meant.

Kindness was a young boy helping a beaten thief to clean his injuries and being beaten senseless himself. Mercy was a girl caring after her drunkard whore of a mother only to be sold for a bottle to the nearest man who might buy her. To have a heart was to die poisoned by human stench.

The only thing that was pure, clean in that world of filth was authority. The bright sunset red on the uniforms of the guards; the dull noble copper of their cockades. There was no mercy in their hearts, only divine wrath. The thief would be shot. The drunk whore would be hanged. All the human dirt would be swept away, and the world a better place for it.

Javert seemed to see one of them now - a tall stately figure walking slowly away from his bed, his heavy black boots shining with polished leather, a gleam on the bayonet of his rifle.

“Officer,” Javert rasped weakly. The man stopped and turned to him.

Large beads of sweat trickled slowly down Javert’s temples. The prison guard had the face of Jean Valjean.

“You’re an impostor,” Javert tried to protest, but his lungs failed him and all he could get out was an excruciating barking cough. “I will- In the name of the law-“

“On the contrary, monsieur l’inspecteur,” the guard said, his voice infuriatingly devoid of anger. “It is you who is playing this role. You have committed no wrong. You don’t belong here, for you are a free man. And I release you.”

He leant forward and took Javert’s hand. And for a brief, terrifying moment Javert felt grateful.

Then he came awake, shaking in fever and disgust.

 

He had a reputation among the ward nurses for swearing in his delirium. This was not in itself at all a remarkable trait; plenty of patients from the lower walks of life swore like sailors at any hint of discomfort.

But there was something striking about Javert - about the cold severity of his expression, about his clear quick eyes, even about the neatness of his dress that teetered on the brink of being fashionable - that was hard to reconcile with this sudden propensity for spewing elaborate curses like one tormented.

“I have to say,” commented Sister Constance, the matron, “these are some choice words for a man like him.”

“That young policeman, Mercier, said he used to be a prison guard,” chipped in one of the younger nurses.

“Qui se couche avec des chiens se lève avec des puces,” was everyone’s general opinion.

Javert, meanwhile, had started to recover.

He remembered waking up one day to see one of his junior officers bring him new clothes; among them was an item Javert found exceedingly curious - a black leather coat with silvery buckles and a hood.

He found it curious because he could recall wearing it. In a different city, in a different time - or _was_ it a different time? For a moment he felt terribly uncertain. Over the course of his illness he had lost count of days and nights; he had been weak and confused. Could it be that his memories of what had happened to him were false, too? Could it be that he had just been appointed to serve in the Vigau police under Captain Beauvais?

If that was the case, he could change so much, do so many things differently. He would beg the Prefect to transfer him to Paris; he would leave before any hint of suspicion arose in his mind as to the identity of the mayor of Vigau. Someone else would handle that. Someone else would identify Jean Valjean.

But the instance he had mentally pronounced this name, his momentary confusion was blown away like smoke. He turned his head and looked, long and hard, into the sunlit window of the hospital, up at the faint outline of Notre-Dame.

Vigau was but a mirage.

“You have a visitor, monsieur l’inspecteur,” he heard Sister Constance’s voice. Javert snapped out of his reverie.

“I have?” he responded very softly, wary of irritating his already raw throat. He hoped, however, that he was able to inject an appropriate amount of irony into his tone.

Javert had no friend nor kin. The idea that anyone other than Lieutenant Mercier would visit him in the hospital was patently absurd. Surely even this brainless nun could see that after the weeks he had spent in her ward?

“Indeed,” said she, the irony obviously lost on her. “He says he’s a colleague of yours. His name is Ultime Lafitte.”

Javert felt as though he were suddenly stricken by a lightning bolt. It seemed to him that he had not at all the time to prepare himself when soft footsteps came from the corridor outside the ward and a terribly familiar face appeared before him in the doorframe.

Jean Valjean approached his bed and stood by, looking down at him with an unreadable expression.

“How dare you come to me,” hissed Javert, and even that hiss proved too much for him. For some moments he writhed mutely in a fit of chest pain.

“Cosette is going to be here, too,” said Valjean, ignoring his indignation. “I have sent her to bring you some food, Inspector. I don’t expect the hospital fare is particularly nourishing.”

At once Javert saw an opportunity to attack. He stiffened under his bedsheets, his eyes intent on Valjean’s face.

“I will tell her who you are.”

Valjean remained calm.

“She knows exactly who I am,” said he.

“I will tell her that her mother was a common whore.”

This, at last, elicited a reaction. Javert registered Valjean’s mouth twitch, the creases on his cheeks deepening in a snarl.

“You will do no such thing.”

Javert would’ve laughed if he could risk such a strain to his scarred lungs.

“What are you hoping for, Valjean? Nothing has changed. Fantine has died because of me,” and, upon seeing Valjean flinch and step back, he continued even more forcefully, “ _I have killed Fantine_. And I will kill many more like her.

“They’re human filth. Do you think _you_ are the last of your kind? No. There will be other boys who will steal bread to feed their starving families, and I will be happy to put every single one of them in gaol.”

Valjean was significantly paler by now, but still he spoke.

“If any of that is true,” he said quietly, “then why have you let me go?”

But before Javert could answer, Cosette entered the ward and stood by Valjean’s side.

In her hand she carried a basket covered with a worn red cloth. Her eyes darted quickly from Valjean’s face to Javert’s and back again. She did not seem particularly afraid, but there was a great keenness about her gaze.

When she brushed something off the shoulder of her dark yellow dress, Javert noticed a faint outline in her sleeve that was undoubtedly that of a miniature revolver. It seemed that she trusted in his alleged goodwill considerably less than her father - something Javert found himself thinking of with a measure of approval.

Valjean put a hand on her forearm. The gesture was evidently meant to be reassuring, but his grip was such that his knuckles whitened.

“That is all right, Cosette,” he said quietly. “This man nearly gave his life for me.”

This was such an outrageous claim that it was all Javert could do to stop himself from whipping out his own revolver and shooting Valjean on the spot to prove him wrong. Instead, he shook in another fit of violent, searing coughs; cold sweat from his face was soaking the pillow cover.

But he could see Cosette’s expression soften a little. She gently brushed her fingers against Valjean’s hand, mutely asking him to release her; when he complied, she walked closer to Javert’s bed. With some tentativeness she put her basket on the floor nearby, took the red cloth and used it to wipe Javert’s forehead.

There was something about that touch that unsettled him to the extreme. This act of basic human compassion, which Cosette herself would hardly give a second thought to, was a shocking novelty to Javert. He felt himself craving more of this care the way an intemperate man might crave strong drink. Pleasure spread through his body the instance the cool cloth touched his skin; and at once he was awash with fear.

“Hands off me, bitch,” growled he, his voice almost inhuman.

Valjean was upon him lightning fast. His large fingers curled around Javert’s throat as if it were a flimsy tree branch. He was no longer young, but there was still an impossible, animal strength in him; only now did Javert realize how much effort it must’ve taken to drag him out of the river.

Valjean dragged him up harshly, almost tearing off the upper button on his collar, and slammed his head into the metal railings of the bed. Javert’s head swam and there was a taste of blood in his mouth. He made an effort to focus on Valjean’s face and saw Valjean’s eyes, normally so cool and calculating, flooded with madness and violence.

For a moment, Javert knew peace. For a moment, all was right in his world.

“If you insult Cosette ever again,” Valjean said very softly and very distinctly, “I will haunt you every waking second of your life, Javert.”

Other patients in the ward were looking in their direction, and some over-eager little man had already slipped away to look for the matron. There was clearly trouble brewing.

Gradually coming to his senses, Valjean looked around. Cosette tugged anxiously at his sleeve, and he seemed to make some sort of decision; he nodded at her and released Javert, unceremoniously dropping his head back onto the pillow. Cosette and Valjean exited the ward - quickly enough, but without much apparent haste.

Javert lay still, a hazy cold sort of smile on his thin lips.

After a while he looked at the basket. There was some cold chicken in it, a couple of pears, half a quiche, a bottle of lemonade, and a loaf of bread.

For a while he toyed with the idea of blowing his brains out there and then and ruining all the food. But, he told himself, a good policeman never uses the same strategy for a second time if it has already failed once. Nor does an honourable man re-offer a sacrifice once rejected.

When the matron came around, he told her that he had accidentally bumped his head while tossing around in fever.

 

They walked down Quai de la Corse towards Pont au Change, intending to find a cab on the other bank of the Seine. Or perhaps they would walk all the way home; Cosette knew her father to have an odd mistrust of cabs when in distress.

He walked in great strides, the corners of his mouth set. But she was a tall and strong girl, too, and she could keep up with him relatively easily.

The esplanade was still. The only sounds were the clicking of Cosette’s heels and the slight rustle of the lime trees. A scent of wet honey hung in the air, and the small yellow and orange flowers were like constellations of stars against the darkening cold sky.

But Jean Valjean didn’t look up; his head was hung low and his shoulders hunched down.

“I wonder if I have done wrong,” he said at length, his tone seemingly unemotional.

“Do you mean that you’ve done wrong when you attacked him? Because that wasn’t a very prudent thing to do.” Her features, however, bore an expression of pained tenderness. She put her hand in a white lace glove on his large shoulder. “But I am grateful.”

He nodded awkwardly and caressed her fingers in response. But his eyes looked absent; he was frowning.

“No, child,” he murmured, allowing himself a weak laugh, “I’ve done well when I attacked him. But I am worried that saving his life was a mistake.”

Javert’s words had sunk deep into Valjean’s mind. _I have killed Fantine._ That was only too true. Many other innocent souls had perished because of Javert; starving children, desperate women, the sick and the decrepit. This man had preyed on them. And if he had not done so for his personal gain but because he perceived it to be right, it was a small enough consolation.

Valjean briefly closed his eyes. _I will kill many more like her_.

He, Jean Valjean, tried his best to be a virtuous man. But how, in truth, could he justify saving Javert? How would he be able to look Cosette in the eye - Cosette, who had just naively tried to comfort her mother’s murderer?

This thought nearly caused him to tremble in revulsion. What on earth had he done?

And yet…

They were crossing Pont au Change now. Valjean looked at the calm dark river running far below him, and he seemed once again to see Javert standing on the edge of the bank.

He seemed once again to smell the smoke from the dying fire and the sharp tang of dirty water.

Javert quickly fastened the handcuffs on his own wrists; was it just Valjean’s imagination or did his hands falter?

Javert’s face, normally a mask of cold indifference, bore an expression of something almost like grief.

Valjean would’ve liked to forget this image, to discard it the way he had so readily discarded many other of his memories. But he found that this expression haunted him.

It was almost as if for a moment, someone else looked at him from Javert’s eyes.

He remembered Javert looking like that before. _Monsieur, a grave violation of the public trust has been committed_.

A brief sad smile played over Valjean’s lips at this memory. How absurd it had all been!

_“Who’s the offender?”_

_“I am. I slandered you, monsieur le maire.”_

Javert had been so agitated he couldn’t bring himself to look his mayor in the eye. He had seemed… almost human.

_“I must’ve been out of my mind to think that a great man like you could be a criminal.”_

And there it was - that look of a mortally wounded, desperately selfish man who desired nothing more in this world than to be selfless.

Valjean almost thought then that one additional push might be enough; that an extra attack on Javert’s worldview would bring the whole bastion tumbling down.

“I order you to forgive yourself,” he had said. “Blame me for this mercy.”

God! How many things could’ve gone differently in Vigau.

“Father,” he heard Cosette’s voice. “We’re home. Where are you going?”

Indeed, the gates of their house were now right in front of him, and he had almost walked past them in his reverie. Valjean absently noted that one of the windows was lit; Marius was still awake - probably reading his ridiculous socialist novels.

Later, during the dinner, Valjean was distracted and barely touched his serving of potatoes. He went to bed early, but did not sleep well.

A few days passed in this manner. Nights brought him no rest. He had quite suddenly returned to his prison habit of sleeping curled up; he often awoke from vague and disturbing dreams, and it was all he could do to conceal - or so he thought - his state from Cosette and Marius.

This continued until, one morning, Marius woke him up by entering his bedroom. This was a highly irregular occurrence, and Valjean sat up, groggy, staring at the boy with a mixture of incredulity and reproach.

“How might I help, Pontmercy?”

Marius blushed, and Valjean thought that his use of the boy’s last name must’ve got the point across rather well.

“Cosette asked me to bring this to you.” Marius was shoving a newspaper into hands. “She wouldn’t explain why.”

“I see,” said Valjean, although he saw nothing at all and was greatly perplexed by this development. Marius all but bolted for the door, and Valjean had the opportunity to study the newspaper more thoroughly.

One headline in particular took him aback.

At this point he could read well enough; but sometimes, when he was greatly upset or agitated, he found that letters dissolved in front of his eyes into the same meaningless inky squiggles they had once been. And this time it took him a while to stop them from dancing in front of his eyes and continue reading past the first line.

“HUNT FOR JEAN VALJEAN AT ITS END,” it said. “CRIMINAL DIES IN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE THE LAW, SAYS INSPECTOR JAVERT.”

Then he suddenly jumped out of the bed, dressed, and stomped down the stairs. Ignoring Marius’ hesitant invitation to join them for breakfast, Valjean stormed out of the house.

“To the Hôtel-Dieu,” he growled at the cabbie.

Evidently intimidated by his tone, the poor man made record speed in reaching the destination. In a moment Valjean was walking under the beige stone arch into the cold twilight of the front corridor.

“Inspector Javert is due to be released today,” the familiar thin-nosed attendant informed him. “He’s in the front garden.”

As if in a dream, Valjean walked out into the garden and slowly glanced around. It was a sunny day. A few patients walked under the chestnut trees, making small talk and laughing.

Among this sociable crowd he quickly spotted a dark figure motionlessly sitting on one of the benches. It was a pale short man holding a large hat in his lap.

“Inspector,” Valjean called quietly, approaching him. He no longer knew what it was that he wanted to say.

Javert lifted his head and looked at him.

“Good day, monsieur Lafitte.” His voice was still weak, though the pneumonic hoarseness was gone from it.

This address, more than anything else, struck Valjean to the core. He had never before heard Javert so much as say this name.

A wild and inexplicable urge suddenly came over him. He wanted to crack this composure; to make Javert acknowledge what he had done.

“I didn’t know you called me that,” said Valjean doggedly.

“What else would I call you, monsieur?” Javert’s mouth tightened in a polite half-smile. But beyond that, deep in his eyes, Valjean saw a growing agitation, and his heart clenched.

“As far as I can remember, you have never called me anything other than Jean Valjean.”

At the sound of this name Javert’s fingers resting atop his hat trembled violently, but he quickly hid his hand away from view.

“That is impossible. Jean Valjean was a runaway convict who was killed ten days ago.”

A long pause followed.

“You could be a good man, Javert,” Valjean said gently.

Javert’s pale features sharpened in an expression of derision.

“And you would make a terrible prison guard.” He abruptly stood up. For a moment they stood close, looking each other in the eye.

“You’re dead, Valjean,” sneered Javert before turning and quickly walking away, his high black boots striking the ground heavily.

Valjean followed Javert with his eyes. It ought to have been a moment of triumph, of freedom; he ought to have felt as happy - happier - than when he had first escaped. But, while relieved, he found in his heart also a strange and profound feeling of regret.

 

“Are you back for duty, Javert?” The subprefect wiped his own forehead with a large patterned handkerchief. It was a hot day, and beads of sweat glistened in his greying sideburns. To Javert’s unpleasant surprise, the subprefect appeared to be genuinely smiling at the sight of him. How this man, a walking embodiment of placidity and indecision, could entertain any liking for Javert was quite beyond Javert’s understanding.

“I am, sir,” he said shortly.

“Well, you will have to make a report about that Jean Valjean business.” The subprefect waved his fat hand at the clerk sitting at a desk in the far corner of the room. “We’re glad to see you recovered.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Javert. “I will make a report now, if you permit.”

“Of course, of course.” The subprefect poured himself some water from a crystal decanter. “Do you want a glass, Javert?”

Javert thought of what he was about to say.

“Yes, sir,” answered he at length.

Upon gulping down the water he put the glass on the subprefect’s desk, made a single step back, and stood with his back straight. Realizing that he was about to speak, his chief made a sign to the clerk. The clerk nodded, dipped his quill into the ink-stand, and wrote a few introductory lines.

“Close to the conclusion of my officers’ pursuit of Jean Valjean, the escaped convict from Toulon,” dictated Javert, “I, Inspector Javert, was captured by the revolutionaries at the barricade near Morland Boulevard.”

The subprefect looked up sharply.

“I warned you, Javert!” he said with indignation. “I warned you! Very well, how did you escape?”

“I did not.” Javert’s voice faltered a little, and he paused. “I was saved by a man whose name I later found out to be Ultime Lafitte.”

“A civilian?”

A beat.

“Yes, sir.”

The subprefect sighed.

“Continue.”

“After regaining my freedom, I gathered my officers and had resumed pursuing Valjean. We chased him into the sewers, and, since he was carrying one of the wounded revolutionaries with him, he was slow. We caught up with him in a few hours. He did not resist arrest, and we took both of them outside to escort them to the station.

“Valjean then asked me to allow him to take the wounded man to… to a hospital. I allowed that and instructed my officers to assist him.”

The subprefect’s eyes bulged. He was silent, however, and only his fist atop the table clenched and unclenched convulsively.

“The officers then returned Valjean to me, at my request. I handcuffed him, led him to the river, and shot him in the head with my revolver.”

“Stop! Stop writing!” Javert’s chief waved his hands wildly at the clerk, his face an unhealthy shade of beetroot red.

“Javert!” spluttered he, jumping to his feet. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“I am saying the truth, sir,” responded Javert quietly. His eyes, unfocussed, seemed to be concentrated on something distant. “I have not finished my report. May I continue?”

“Continue?! What else could you possibly say?”

“Upon shooting the prisoner,” Javert continued, unflinching, “I threw myself into the river with the object of ending my own life, sir.”

The subprefect looked as though he might have an apoplexy any minute now.

“The same man, Lafitte,” said Javert, “pulled me out, exhibiting considerable courage and putting his own life at risk. He needs to be rewarded for assisting the law and repeatedly saving an officer on duty. May I suggest a letter of congratulations?”

“Very well, Javert,” said the subprefect. His voice came out sounding more like a hiss, but he was making a visible effort to pull himself together. “But you do realize that _you_ will have to be dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It will not be an honourable dismissal.”

“Very well, sir.” No one would dare to call him a “good man” after that.

“But I will not be pressing any charges against you. Out of respect for your…” the subprefect wiped his face with the handkerchief again, “for your past loyal service.”

Javert imagined that might have more to do with the fact that the Paris police could do without airing the news along the lines of “POLICE INSPECTOR GONE MAD, KILLS ONE PRISONER, RELEASES THE OTHER”, but he bowed nevertheless.

“Thank you, sir.”

The subprefect desperately searched for more words, but found none.

“You’re free to go,” he said at last.

Javert turned and walked out. Not an hour ago he had walked through the same door towards the possibility of honours and promotions. Maybe he would’ve got that medal for courage and devotion, after all. But now his every ambition, the very work he loved - perhaps the only thing he loved in the whole world - was ashes under his feet.

He looked at the merciless blue sky. He took some pleasure in the thought of how panicked Valjean would be upon receiving a letter with the stamp of the Paris police prefecture.


End file.
